Knowle West Media Centre: Building a ‘digital city commons’

Digital technology can help citizens build homes and work together on social problems but only if the tools are shared far beyond the ‘early adopters’, says Carolyn Hassan 

In Bristol – as in many other cities – our voluntary sector is faced with fewer funds and less capacity to deliver services at current levels, but facing a demand to do more as public services are cut and the most vulnerable feel the impact of austerity.

With limited public money, how do we build capacity and develop new ways of addressing city challenges?

Knowle West Media Centre’s (KWMC) approach is to explore how digital tools can engage people in their communities to identify challenges, co-design solutions, and share the learning and tools across neighbourhoods, building a new ‘city commons’.

KWMC doesn’t start with the technology but with the people – and the exploration of problems, experiences and places with those who are affected. We ask people: what do you know about the challenge you are facing and what don’t you know? How can we, together, know more and make the changes needed to solve problems? How will we know the impact we are making?

‘We see a future city that we contribute to, together, rather than

a city ruled by technology that controls and determines our lives.’

Access to digital making has huge potential to help people to contribute to their communities and city – and to participate in designing solutions. Learning from the brilliant ‘Fablab’ community and maker movement, we have developed our own community based micro-manufacturing space, KWMC: The Factory.

Technologies like 3D printing, laser cutting and CNC machines, and new processes, materials and prototyping are assets for the makers of the future, incorporating open source design, circular economy thinking, reuse, collaborative design and computer aided production.

Wider community access to these resources will enable people to explore how they might make physical things that contribute to their communities, whether this be pre-fabricated housing –  in our We Can Make Homes project – to planters and public benches for local streets.

We use an approach called the Bristol Approach to Citizen Sensing which allows people to explore if and how sensor technology and Internet of Things devices could to find solutions to local issues.

Using the framework ensures that we don’t jump straight to technology but rather explore what the nature of the problem is more thoroughly: sometimes a solution requires a conversation between the right people, or signposting to another support organisation, and doesn’t need a ‘smart’ solution.

We want to help people become ‘smarter’ citizens and enablers of change, rather than relying on the ‘smart city’ as ‘Big Brother’, with command and control coming from the state and big business.

An example of how our approach has created tools and ideas for change is the Dampbusters project. Residents, artists and technologists came together to solve the problem of damp in rented accommodation and created a frog-shaped sensor to measure temperature and humidity.

We are currently setting up an improved prototype of the sensor frog, but, as important as the device is, it is vital to incorporate the terms of engagement into the design of such devices and solutions.

Good communication and access to social media, apps and digital platforms are essential to sharing the learning, but digital tools also enable us to ask for, or offer, time and skills through volunteering platforms such as Helpful Peeps or exchange time, money or credits to help resource projects (in the case of Made Open).

Where there is need for materials or to raise money we might draw on crowdfunding platforms. Many do more than raise necessary funds: they build profile and make explicit the contribution of people’s time (see the Berry Maze campaign on Spacehive).

But all these programmes need two other elements: firstly a space to experiment and sometimes to fail (some digital tools take off, others don’t), and, secondly, more opportunities to learn and acquire digital skills. We need to support those least likely to be ‘early adopters’ of technology and who often have the most experience of city challenges. These are the communities where solutions and agency are most needed and where, if we share what we learn, that learning will have the most impact.

Our hope is that, in time, we will create a new ‘digital city commons’, which is both a mindset of collaboration and a digital space that supports diverse communities to contribute to their neighbourhoods and share their learning for the benefit of all.

The ‘commons’ will provide opportunities for people to learn and access the skills and tools to create solutions to the challenges we face, whether they’re changing a disused green space or neglected high street or designing new responses to society’s challenges such as an aging population. We see a future and a city that we contribute to, together, rather than a city ruled by technology that controls and determines the quality of our lives.

• Carolyn Hassan is founder and director of Knowle West Media Centre